“Ah. So he’s off on one of his Wild Hunts, eh? Off for drink and debauchery.”
“It is a most unkind way to speak of the All-father, but yes. Yes. It is as you say.” She shook her head and sighed. “This one has gone on far longer than I am comfortable, so we are left to manage the tavern on our own.”
I shrugged. “The place looks great, if I’m honest. Even better than the last time.”
She looked around conspiratorially, as if checking the walls for bugs, then leaned in. The counter creaked. “Between you and me, it has been better. I am startled to learn that both business and the state of the tavern have improved since the All-father departed.”
Was it really so much of a surprise? Yes, Odin was still powerful, as far as gods who’d survived into the modern world could be, but he tended to enjoy the rampaging and revelry more than actually running a business. Putting up the Twilight Tavern always sounded like more of a midlife crisis than any old aspiration. Take it from me, immortality gets boring, and I haven’t been around as long as any of the old gods.
Perhaps I should have led with the fact that the gods existed at all. Those, and angels, and demons, too. I’d both fought and befriended my fa
ir share of them in my time. One even gave me a spiffy sword, with a blade that sparked with lightning.
But, I digress. Helga here was the exact person we’d come to see. It wasn’t her statuesque frame and sheer strength that made her unique. Those traits were common to all valkyrie, who made up the entire staff of the Twilight Tavern. Things just weren’t the same as the old days. Too many valkyrie, and not enough warriors dying in battle for them to lift up to whatever lofty realm it was that the brave and valorous were supposed to go to. Oh, there were still valkyrie out there doing the job, just a far smaller number of them. Helga and her sisters at the tavern seemed to be perfectly content with the business of running a business.
“We’re not going to take up too much of your time,” said Gil. “We know you’re very busy here, but we’d like to know what you’ve heard of these killings.”
Helga tutted and shook her head. “Terrible. Truly awful. My sisters and I believe that these were premeditated, no mere accident. Not a wild animal attack, as reports have stated.”
I snapped my fingers. “See? I said the exact same thing. Nothing just eats a person’s face then wanders off just like that.”
Asher wrinkled his forehead. “Well, don’t look so happy about it.”
“How did you see these images? Who sent them to you?”
Helga shrugged. “It is a small town, Mr. Sterling. All it takes is for someone from the right department to leak a photograph, and then it spreads like wildfire. It is the way of things with information in this modern age. Fascinating, and yet, terrifying.”
Asher gulped, then licked his lips. “Do you think we can take a look?”
She glanced around, then nodded. “I would prefer that my sisters do not see me doing this.” She slid open a drawer behind the counter, retrieving a smartphone that looked so comparatively tiny in her hand. “Here. I must warn you, the photographs are most unpleasant.”
I looked to either side of me: a werewolf, and a necromancer. And me, a vampire. Nothing in the realm of the macabre should have been so shocking to any of the three of us. Yet all the numbness that comes with being in close proximity to death doesn’t really prepare you for the sight of a corpse with its face ripped off. Helga kept scrolling. The pictures only kept coming. They seemed to indicate at least three different victims.
Asher covered his mouth, gagging. Gil made a low rumbling at the back of his throat, shaking his head. I pressed my lips tightly together. This wasn’t really the worst thing I’d ever seen, but there was something so inherently violent about how these people had died. Whatever did this had done it deliberately, with malice, perhaps pleasure. Despite their heads only having the barest remains of facial features, it was clear that they had died in states of complete and utter terror, mouths wide open, eyeballs bulging.
“As I said, the images are truly upsetting.” Helga tucked her phone back into the drawer. “I can send them to you if you wish to examine them more closely.”
“We’d appreciate that,” I said. I clapped Asher on the back. “Asher here can take a closer look, see what he can find.” He looked up at me weakly, his skin pallid and a little sweaty.
“How spread out are the murders?” Gil said.
Helga’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling as she tried to remember. “The first was last month, I believe. It was all over the Silveropolis Gazette. Now there have been five murders.”
I frowned. “That makes one each week. It checks out. Too methodical. These weren’t accidents. Animal attack my ass.”
Helga sipped in a mouthful of air like she was about to speak, but she hesitated, her eyes flitting towards Gil. I arched an eyebrow.
“Were you going to say something, Helga?”
She looked between us, nodding at Gil apologetically. “I shouldn’t say this – or I should say that I am sorry for suggesting this possibility. We valkyrie have been away from battle for quite a while, but of my sisters and I who work here at the tavern, there is a common opinion.” She looked down again, twiddling her thumbs.
I shrugged. “It’s all right, Helga. You’re among friends. You can say it.”
“Well, you see, it has been ages since I have seen something like this, but we are familiar with the ways of death. A valkyrie remembers the way a wound looks when it is inflicted by a blade, or a spear, or a hammer. In the same way, one remembers an injury dealt by, say, a war hound – or a wolf.”
Gil’s face darkened. “You’re not seriously suggesting that, are you?”
Helga nodded again, shutting her eyes solemnly. “I am sorry, Mr. Ramirez, but my sisters and I agree. We believe that these attacks were instigated by werewolves.”